Location Shots & Real People - TWW S1E1-6

As I've developed this blog, and particularly these reviews/revisitings of The West Wing, I keep coming up with additional things I'd like to add. Hopefully this will stop soon - since I'm just 6 episodes in so far, it's not that tough to go back and catch up, but if I think of something new to cover in Season 5 I'm probably screwed.

Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to include the Washington, DC, location scenes that were seen in the episodes, along with references to real people who actually exist in our universe. While The West Wing is, obviously, a fictitious drama created by Aaron Sorkin and other writers, it's meant to be set in something very close to our reality. By including people from real, actual life, we can kind of see where the show splits away from true history. What Presidents actually existed in The West Wing universe, and which ones didn't? What news anchors? What other international leaders? We know (from Mr. Willis Of Ohio) that The West Wing Constitution must differ slightly from our own, otherwise Joe Willis could not have been appointed to replace his late wife in the House of Representatives (Senators, yes, but Representatives have to be replaced in an election). How close do other things hew to our reality?

As for the location shots, I just thought it would be interesting to list which scenes were actually filmed in DC, rather than on the studio lot in California. I heard Sorkin say (I believe it was in the DVD commentary for Pilot, although I'm not 100 percent positive) that the series typically traveled to Washington about four times a year, during which they would film all their location scenes for the pertinent section of that season. Naturally, that would mean the weather wouldn't exactly match up with the timeline (In Excelsis Deo, for example, is the Christmas episode, yet the trees at Arlington National Cemetery are pretty darn green for December). So by pulling out the location shots for each episode, you can almost piece together which trip involved which scene. Nowadays, of course, TV series like Scandal don't need to travel to actual locations at all. Through crafty set-building and the use of CGI and other technical tricks, a movie or TV show can be believably set just about anywhere, without the need of the production to ever actually go film at that location.

(As an actor myself, I also find it intriguing how the actors would have to deal with filming location shots for several different episodes at once, getting into the characters' headspace for differing timelines and varying storylines. For example, I figure all the location scenes for at least "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc", Five Votes Down, and The Crackpots And These Women were filmed on the same trip east.)

DC location shots (Pilot)    

• Mandy driving along the National Mall, getting pulled over right on the Mall directly down from the Capitol.

• Leo and Reverend Caldwell walking along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House.

The scene with Josh and Mandy in the diner was filmed in Los Angeles, not DC (confirmed by Sorkin in his DVD commentary).

DC location shots (Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc) 

• Mandy ramming her car up on the curb near the Navy Memorial so she can yell at Lloyd Russell. (It appears where she jumped the curb was at 8th Street and D Street NW, if you're interested. That should be the National Archives you see in this shot.)

• Mandy's BMW getting towed from in front of her "office." This is on Thomas Jefferson Street where it crosses the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, in Georgetown.

• The entire scene outside with Sam and Laurie, after he humiliates her in the bar with her client. The door they come out of appears to be The Capital Grille, on the corner of 6th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue. (Those are giant cuts of meat on display in the window behind Sam. Also, I believe the same blonde extra you see entering the restaurant here is seen just a moment later across the street hailing a cab.) While the Newseum is now located just east of The Capital Grille, it wasn't built there until 2008, so the building you see there as Sam and Laurie cross the street no longer exists.

• As Sam and Laurie walk along Pennsylvania Avenue, you can actually see a street sign for the 200 block of 6th Street NW, and the scene ends with them walking past the Andrew Mellon Memorial Fountain, which is across Pennsylvania Avenue from the current Newseum and across Constitution Avenue from the National Gallery of Art (and the Washington Monument is visible in the distance, which if you'll remember had scaffolding around it in 1999 for repairs.)

There are no location scenes in A Proportional Response, although there is B-roll/stock footage of cars driving along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, which is something you can't do anymore.

DC location shots (Five Votes Down) 

• Josh threatening Katzenmoyer with the loss of his seat over the vote on the gun control bill, right in front of the Capitol by the Capitol Reflecting Pool. (Can I also add the oddity of both Katzenmoyer and Josh saying the next congressional election is two years away? If this is the fall of 1999, following the Presidential election of Bartlet in 1998, then the midterms are just over one year away. These guys would know that. Later in the episode Representative Wick tells Josh, "I've been here over a year," and that's not true, either ... as a freshman Representative he would have been sworn in early in 1999, so it's been less than a year. Heck, it hasn't even been a year since the election, let alone taking office.)

• Leo and Rep. Richardson talking in front of the Lincoln Memorial (it's not in this picture, but you can clearly see the scaffolding on the Washington Monument in this scene).

DC location shots (The Crackpots And These Women) 

• Playing basketball, at night, in front of the White House, on Pennsylvania Avenue, with the President of the United States (and NBA player Juwan Howard). 1999 was certainly a simpler time - even just to film this sequence.

• Not actually a location shot, but an establishing shot of a building apparently containing the offices of Josh's psychiatrist, Stanley. No idea where this might be located in DC.

There were no location shots in Mr. Willis Of Ohio, although we did see an establishing shot of the Georgetowne Station bar. The location is still a bar in Georgetown, just no longer called Georgetowne Station.

References to real people (Pilot)    

• Sam refers to Alger Hiss and his pumpkin in the cold-open scene in the bar.
• Leo is after the New York Times for misspelling "Gaddafi" in the crossword. Muammar Gaddafi was leader of Libya at the time. (Of note: Leo says he's met the man three times and recommended an Exocet missile strike against him. When would he have done that? We find out in A Proportional Response that the Bartlet administration has had no military adventures prior to that. We will also find out Leo served in a previous administration as Secretary of Labor - hardly a position to advocate for missile strikes [with French-made missiles, yet] against a foreign country. As Jed mentions in "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc", "Now that's a thought that's going to fester.")
• Castro is mentioned with regard to the Cuban refugees trying to make it to Florida. One must assume they mean Fidel Castro, President of Cuba.
• Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt are referred to during Sam's disastrous educational talk to the fourth-graders.

References to real people ("Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc")    

• MSNBC news commentator Chris Matthews is mentioned.

References to real people (A Proportional Response)    

• Throughout the first several episodes, many national cable news anchors are visible on televisions in the background, including Bernard Shaw, Bill Hemmer, and Christiane Amanpour. Wolf Blitzer is seen with his name actually appearing onscreen.
• CJ refers to the popular Puerto Rican musical group Menudo while she's trying to throw reporters off the scent of military action.
• Leo tells President Bartlet he can conquer the world "like Charlemagne" if he wants.

References to real people (Five Votes Down)    

• Josh wistfully recalls the power LBJ had over Congress, which must refer to President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
• Leo asks if famed jeweler Harry Winston has sent the necklace for his wife's anniversary. While Winston himself died in 1978, his jewelry company continues to this day.

References to real people (The Crackpots And These Women)    

• Toby and Josh call out Jed for bringing on tennis superstar Steffi Graf as a ringer during mixed doubles in Florida.
• Leo's Big Block of Cheese Day got its start, according to Leo, from President Andrew Jackson.
• Toby makes a convoluted comparison of President Bartlet to Joe McCarthy - just because he plans to speak out against Hollywood movie violence days before appearing at a Hollywood fundraiser. Frankly, I don't see the link.
• Josh talks about Schubert, the composer of "Ave Maria" - obviously Franz Schubert.

References to real people (Mr. Willis Of Ohio)    

• Spending money to renovate the birthplace of early feminist Susan B. Anthony is mentioned as part of the appropriations bill.
• Leo's request to the staff to not do anything to make him look bad causes Josh to compare him to legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne.
• The frat boys at the bar throw out some racist comparisons to Charley, including rappers/actors LL Cool J, Ice-T, and Ice Cube. ("Ice Tray," though, I don't believe is an actual rapper or actor. I also love the remark on Ice-T's Wikipedia page warning readers not to confuse him with "iced tea.")

Mr. Willis Of Ohio - TWW S1E6

Original airdate: November 3, 1999

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (6)

Directed by: Christopher Misiano (1)

Synopsis

• Toby tries to convince three Congressmen, including a recently appointed member from Ohio, to stop a budget bill amendment that would prohibit the use of sampling data in the upcoming census. Meanwhile, Sam explains the ins-and-outs of the census process to CJ. President Bartlet acts fatherly toward both his daughter Zoey (harassed by frat boys at a Georgetown bar) and the-son-he-never-had Charlie. Donna can't understand why she can't have her personal share of a recent budget surplus to buy a DVD player.

"I met an unusual man. He didn't walk into the room with a political agenda, he didn't walk in with his mind made up. He genuinely wanted to do what he thought was best, didn't mind saying the words, 'I don't know'."

One of the things I really love about The West Wing is how it wants to show our government and our leaders not necessarily as they really are, but how we'd hope they'd be - in pursuit of the ideals of a higher calling and the greater good in leading our nation. Mr. Willis Of Ohio (the man and the title) brings to this universe an everyman whose aims are so simple and pure and open that our characters realize they can aspire to even greater heights than they think.

This episode is also a civics lesson. And in typical West Wing fashion, it's a civics lesson cloaked in entertainment and humor. You want to know about the census? This here episode of The West Wing is the one for you. And also the one for CJ, as it turns out:

CJ: "Sam, I read my briefing book last night on the Commerce bill regarding the census, and there's certain parts of it that I don't quite understand."

Sam: "I can help you out, which parts?"

CJ: "Well, all of it."

Sam: "All of it?"

CJ: "Yes."

Sam: "You don't understand the census."

CJ: "I don't understand certain nuances."

Sam: "Like what?"

CJ: "Like, the census."

(While the conceit of having a concept explained to the audience by having it explained to a character on the show is a well-used trope, we'll just ignore the fact that The West Wing often does this through explanations to the female characters, usually Donna. Are we really to believe that a top-notch sharp cookie like CJ doesn't have any idea of what the census is about?)

The other main theme of this episode is the fatherly attitude of Jed Bartlet - not only in his justifiably protective approach towards his youngest daughter Zoey (brought to the fore by three frat bros who harass her in a Georgetown bar), but also towards Charlie. Throughout the series we'll see that Charlie becomes the son Jed never had, and the process of the President taking Charlie under his wing and giving him fatherly guidance develops into an ongoing plotline. Heck, the only reason Zoey was in the Georgetown bar in the first place is because the President told Josh to take Charlie out for a drink (with Zoey and Mallory volunteering themselves to tag along, as well as Sam, CJ, and Mandy EDIT: Not Mandy. Mandy wasn't there, she wasn't invited. Take this as a hint, Mandy).

But to the civics lesson: the House of Representatives is debating a budget bill for the coming fiscal year. While there's a big surplus to deal with ($32 billion), Congressmen are wasting no time finding ways to spend the money. But there's also a pending amendment to the bill prohibiting the use of sampling data in determining census numbers, an amendment the administration is so adamantly opposed to that the President is threatening to veto the entire bill.

So the White House brings in three swing votes from the House Commerce Committee (Representatives Skinner, Gladman and Willis) to try to change some votes. Toby explains that the administration wants to use sampling data to provide a more accurate accounting of all the citizens of the country, including the homeless and those less likely to answer the door-to-door canvassers that typically conduct the census. Supporters of the amendment don't trust data sampling, and want to stick to the traditional "hand count." It comes down to Mr. Willis (of Ohio), who is convinced by Toby's arguments and a reading of a section of the Constitution. Willis agrees to change his mind and vote against the amendment, supporting the administration until such time as the courts make a legal determination on the use of sampling.

(It's stated these three Congressmen are all swing votes, yet Willis is the only one to change his mind. Apparently they only needed one, as we see the administration celebrating victory on the vote at the end of the episode.)

Here's the great thing about Willis. He's just an 8th-grade social studies teacher, thrust into the job to serve out the term of his wife, who died a month prior. He's not a politician, he's not dazzled by the power of the White House, he's not fazed by the career elected officials he's working with - he's just a guy, an everyday American, willing to listen to both sides of the argument and make his decision based on the facts presented. It's a perfect-world version of who should actually be governing, and we know our government is everything but "perfect-world," but it suits our purposes in this episode. What if "just a guy" was thrust into Congress? What if political considerations didn't matter, and every decision was made based on what was best for the country and where the facts led us? Well, it'd be something like Mr. Willis Of Ohio.

And to meet someone as down to earth and as fundamentally honest and open as Joe Willis, well ... that can make even a prickly grump like Toby absolutely beam.

(Of course, here's the thing: Toby's using the Constitution to make his argument on the census. In the very same Article and Section of that document, we would learn that a vacancy in the House of Representatives must be filled by "the people," in a special election; there's no way a governor could appoint the spouse of a deceased Congressperson to fill out the term. Senators, yes, governors do appoint those replacements, but not in the House. Aaron Sorkin admits he knew the facts, but dealing with an appropriations bill - which has to come out of the House - and feeling that the audience would make too many real-world connections with any Senator he might use for this instance, he decided to ignore the actual Constitutional requirements and do it his way. Of course, The West Wing is a fictional universe, after all - perhaps their Constitution is slightly different. Maybe? Fanwank?)

As for Jed and his fatherly intentions showing through, we first really see his concern about his family's safety early on. As a staff poker game in Leo's office is breaking up, the Secret Service holds everyone in the Oval Office because someone jumped the fence. We later find out this person was a mentally disturbed woman with a gun, and she wasn't after the President, but she was after Zoey.

(This information comes to us courtesy of the head of the White House Secret Service detail, Ron Butterfield, played by Michael O'Neill. He'll return in that role many times over the next seven seasons. I think he's just great; matter-of-fact and eminently capable concerning his security role, yet you see the humanity and concern coming through in his acting.)

So, after Jed pushes Josh to take Charlie out for a drink, Mallory (Leo's daughter) and Zoey sweet-talk their way into joining the group. They go to Georgetowne Station, which at the time was evidently a bar in Georgetown near the university.

It's called something different now, but it looks exactly the same and still appears to be a bar in Georgetown (this is a Google Streets image from 2017):

Everyone is having a great time (maybe except for Sam, as he takes a good amount of grief about his ongoing relationship with Laurie, the call girl he's trying to reform), until Zoey is accosted by three frat bros (Georgetown students? It's implied, so much so that the Georgetown student newspaper had to publish a column about the episode). One thing leads to another, Charlie is the first to step up to pull Zoey away from her harassers, and then Josh uses Zoey's panic button to bring the Secret Service to the rescue.

The whole sequence of events - an intruder after Zoey, a kerfluffle in a bar - drives Jed the father crazy with concern, and he has to go to tremendous lengths to convince Zoey of the seriousness of his situation:

President: "My getting killed would be bad enough, but that is not the nightmare scenario. The nightmare scenario, sweetheart, is you getting kidnapped. You go out to a bar or a party in some club and you get up to go to the restroom, somebody comes up from behind and puts their hand across your mouth and whisks you out the back door. You're so petrified you don't even notice the bodies of a few Secret Service agents lying on the ground with bullet holes in their heads. Then you're whisked away in a car. It's a big party with lots of noise and lots of people coming and going, and it's a half hour before someone says, Hey, where's Zoey? Another 15 minutes before the first phone call. It's another hour and half before anyone even thinks to shut down all the airports, and now we're off to the races! You're tied to a chair in a cargo shack somewhere in the middle of Uganda, and I am told that I have 72 hours to get Israel to free 460 terrorist prisoners. So I'm on the phone pleading with Ben Yahbin and he's saying, I'm sorry, Mr. President, Israel simply does not negotiate with terrorists, period. It's the only way we can survive. So now we've got a new problem. Because this country no longer has a Commander-In-Chief, it has a father who's out of his mind because his little girl is in a shack somewhere in Uganda with a gun to her head! Do you get it?" 

It's a great way for us to see the difference between President Josiah Bartlet and Jed the dad, as well as how they are inextricably linked. This is coming up again, at the end of Season 4.

This episode also includes a great running thread with Donna's complaints about not getting her share of the budget surplus returned to her. Sorkin uses this to play with the fiscal stereotypes of Democrats (all the spending listed in the appropriations bill) and Republicans (tax relief, tax relief, tax relief!). Donna actually ends up making a good market-based argument for her side:

Josh: "Let's say your cut of the surplus is $700. I want to take your money, combine it with everybody else's money, and use it to pay down the debt and further endow Social Security. What do you want to do with it?"

Donna: "Buy a DVD player." (CAUTION: auto-play YouTube link, and it's LOUD.)

Josh: "See?"

Donna: "But my $700 is helping employ the people who manufacture and sell DVD players, not to mention the people who manufacture and sell DVDs. It's the natural evolution of the market economy."

Josh: "The problem is, the DVD player you buy might be made in Japan."

Donna: "I'll buy an American one."

Josh: "We don't trust you."

Donna: "Why not?"

Josh: "We're Democrats."

Donna: "I want my money back!"

Josh: "You shouldn't have voted for us."

And finally, Leo tells Jed about the breakup of his marriage with Jenny. Leo has moved out of the house into a hotel (Mallory is actually bringing him some things from home, which is why she's hanging around and able to go out to the bar later - not only to hang around Sam). Bartlet's first reaction to the news is less than gracious:

President: "Fix this, Leo."

Leo: "It's not as simple as that."

President: "It is as simple as that. You're the man. Fix it."

Leo: "Mr. President --"

President: "Fix it."

At the end of the day, and especially after his talk with Zoey, the President realizes his misstep with his old friend, and he offers an apology and a heartfelt response of support for what Leo is going through. Not a huge focus of the episode, but it fleshes out the deep friendship between the two (and the faultlines that any long friendship will have), and strengthens the theme of fatherly/familial support and respect.

So not only a optimistic picture of public service and selfless democracy, but also a picture of overriding fatherly love and affection - that's what we get in Mr. Willis Of Ohio.


Things to think about:

- Sam and Toby are both smoking cigars during the opening poker game in Leo's office. I guess the White House wasn't smoke-free in 1999 (we know the President smokes cigarettes, after all).

- I don't know exactly why, but the rustling suit noises in the episode's first Oval Office scene were incredibly distracting. I don't think I've heard that before, so I don't know if it was a problem with the sound mixing in that scene or what, but once you hear it, you can't stop hearing it.

- I've mentioned the poor taste in background music in previous episodes (even if maybe the producers did have New Order in the broadcast version of "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" and just couldn't get the rights for DVD/streaming), but they stepped it up a notch here. In the bar we hear the Foo Fighters' "Learn To Fly" playing in the background. Nice.

- President Bartlet sticks Josh with a crack about going out for "malteds or something" instead of taking his daughter to a bar. Would a New Hampshire guy like Jed call them "malteds"? My research is unclear. Many parts of New England call a flavored ice cream/milk mixture a "frappe" and not a "milkshake," as much of the rest of the country would call them. Rhode Island, of course, calls them "cabinets," which is just weird. However, malted milkshakes might indeed be called "malteds," even in New England, so I don't know if that's a Sorkin mistake or if it's an accurate New Hampshire reference.

- CJ tells Josh "I like beer" when he's asking Sam to come along to the bar with him and Charlie. Once at the bar, though, she's ordering a grasshopper. Not exactly the same as beer ...

- Charlie tells the frat bros they'd need to take Zoey to Maryland to buy her a drink, as she's 19. I don't know what he means by that; all 50 states raised their drinking age to 21 by the late 1980s in order to prevent a loss of federal highway funds. You suppose he was just taking a dig at Maryland somehow?

- The epithets hurled at Charlie (and later Sam and Josh) by the frat boys in the bar aren't all that creative or groundbreaking. Kind of an obvious racial slant to things like "LL Cool J," "Ice T," Ice Cube," "G-Funk" or "Dr. Huffy Puffy Dread, man." Seriously, Huffy Puffy Dread? Then they up the ante with "Dr. Doolittle" and "Dr. Faggot." Wow, real deep thinkers, these college boys. But then the "Fairy Poppins" thrown at Sam, well, that's got Sorkin all over it.

- Toby is watching the House vote on the budget bill on C-SPAN while the poker game gets set up. Leo tells him he doesn't need to watch, they won "40 votes ago," but Toby wants to witness Joe Willis casting this vote. But take a look:

That appears to show the "2001 Appropriations Bill" currently losing 74-22, with less than 5 minutes remaining on the roll call. Now sure, congressional vote-counting is a thing where you often can count your chickens before they're actually recorded votes, but to say "we won it 40 votes ago" when there's still almost 340 votes to be cast? Hmm ...

- Product placement: at the bar the guys are drinking Heineken and Michelob. Zoey (underage, remember) appears to have a Diet Coke. Leo is drinking Canada Dry ginger ale during the first card game (although interestingly, everyone starts out with bottled water as they sit down for the game at the end of the episode).

Quotes    

Toby: "Kathy, I need a copy of Article 1, Section 2."

Kathy: "Article 1, Section 2 of what?"

Toby: "The Constitution."

Kathy: "Is that something I'm supposed to have at my desk?"

Toby: "Does anyone have a copy of the Constitution?"

(blank looks from everyone)

Toby: "This is discouraging."

Kathy: "Bonnie, would you get Toby a copy of the Constitution?"

Bonnie: "Is it still in print?"

Toby: "Aw, for crying out loud! Try Amazon dot com, if they don't have it, then just bust into the glass display case at the National Archives!" 

----- 

Donna (to Josh, about the surplus, multiple times): "I want my money back."

----- 

Sam (when the topic of his call girl friend comes up at the bar): "Mallory -- does your father know?"

Mallory: "No."

Sam: "Zoey. Does your father know?"

Zoey: "Not yet."

Sam: "Oh, so this is going to be a thing."

-----

Charlie (after Josh and Sam are discussing which two frat boys they would have fought at the bar): "There were no two guys that either of you could have taken."

(Which results in this reaction from Josh and Sam:)

-----

President: "What were you doing, taking my daughter out to a bar?"

Josh: "You -- told me to, sir."

President: "I told you to take Charlie. When Zoey said she was going I just assumed you were going to go have malteds or something."

Josh: "Malteds, sir?"

President: "Yes."

Josh: "What is this, 'Our Town'?"

 (I love the face Jed gives Josh after that snarky line.)

(a few minutes later)

President: "You know, I once played the Stage Manager in a production of 'Our Town'."

Story threads, callbacks, and familiar faces (Hey, it's that guy!)

• Congressman Gladman is played by Kenneth Tigar, a pretty recognizable character actor. You might recall him as the German guy who stands up to Loki in The Avengers.

• Congressman Skinner is played by Charley Lang, another character actor who had recurring roles in the TV series Dark Skies, Seven Days, and Murphy Brown. His Congressman character actually appears a few more times in The West Wing.

• The main frat boy facing off with Charlie and Sam was played by Eric Balfour, who had recurring roles in the series 24, The OC, and Six Feet Under.

• As alluded to above, the "nightmare scenario" outlined in Jed's speech to Zoey plays out in an eerily similar way in the Season 4 episode Commencement, including Bartlet's realization that his situation as a helpless father makes his position as a nation's President untenable. Thanks a lot, Jean-Paul, you jerk.

• Zoey is specifically referred to as being 19, not once but twice. This makes great sense with her starting at Georgetown in the coming January. Listen closely in upcoming episodes, though - that age might mysteriously change.

• Nancy (Renee Estevez) is back, delivering a line in the Oval. Good old Nancy.

End credits freeze frame: Josh giving sass to the President and Leo.